Abstract
This chapter aims to provide analyses of real-life player interactions in multiplayer online games/virtual worlds, using traditional theories of identity from sociological and psychological perspectives. The chapter focuses on actual player experiences and social interactions in several online environments. Central to these player experiences are the related theoretical and psychological concepts of gendered selves, status and power differentials and the relationship between online and real-life identities.
Several short narratives are presented throughout this chapter, based on the actual personal and professional experiences of one of the authors, an early user of online games and virtual environments.
These narratives are used to discuss related theoretical perspectives on identity construction and management and highlight key psychological concepts relating to the presentation of self, including how the offline self impacts on the online self/selves and vice versa, and gendered interactions, deception and ethics in virtual worlds.
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Notes
- 1.
Schaap (2004, p. 2) argues that ‘the conceptualization of the Internet as ‘virtual’ and opposed to ‘real’ reality, sets it up as a radically different space and obscures the importance of the everyday social and cultural practices in which online interaction and presentation of self is embedded’.
- 2.
Mobs short for ‘Mobile’ – Monsters to kill and loot.
- 3.
Imbalanced, relatively more powerful (in some aspects of the game) than other characters.
- 4.
Emotes; way to express emotions (beyond ascii textual means like a smiley:P). Typing the preconfigured emote like/dance or/cheer or/laugh in chat provides a text remark feedback in combination with a sound and animation. Typing /me < message > will result in the output of playername < message > in a different colour than a normal text message and is called an emote. /me points at you and smirks gives the output Gwynn points at you and smirks.
- 5.
Texture hair: In Second Life hair can be a texture applied to a morphed (deformed) skull and comes for free out of the box or made from prims and in a price range from free to very expensive. Currently newly registered avatars come with a range of clothes, skins, shoes and flexi-prim hair ‘out of the box’. Previously these outfits and objects had to be gathered for free (freebie) or bought using Linden Dollars. In those days having texture hair indicated being very new, very unskilled or very indifferent.
- 6.
Pwn3d: l33tsp33ch for owned ☺ L33tsp33ch is adolescent internet lingo. Owned is when you get defeated to the point of humiliation. Leetspeech is frowned upon but pwn3d is one of those irresistible ones.
- 7.
As the second author, I find it fascinating to note that Gwynn has evolved over time in various incarnations and now appears to have become intertwined with the author’s physical identity to the extent that his Facebook and LinkedIn profile is in Gwynn’s name, the profile picture is of Gwynn, yet the profile conveys details of his real-life adventures, not Gwynn’s or his virtual ones. This blurring of boundaries delineating identities is evident throughout this chapter.
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Francino, F., Guiller, J. (2011). “Is That Your Boyfriend?” An Experiential and Theoretical Approach to Understanding Gender-Bending in Virtual Worlds. In: Peachey, A., Childs, M. (eds) Reinventing Ourselves: Contemporary Concepts of Identity in Virtual Worlds. Springer Series in Immersive Environments. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-361-9_8
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